


the imposition of hands

by djsoliloquy



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Begging, Canon Era, Catharsis, Cock Warming, Crying, Dirty Talk, During Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Finger Sucking, Hand & Finger Kink, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Men In Distress, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Praise Kink, Soft Cocks, Trauma, Your Honor This Is An Emotional Support Francis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:41:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27551698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/djsoliloquy/pseuds/djsoliloquy
Summary: The smell of smoke still hangs on him like a shroud, and he begs.Please, Francis. Please. Help me.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 12
Kudos: 56
Collections: Fall Fitzier Exchange





	the imposition of hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reinetta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reinetta/gifts).



> Happy Fitzier Exchange! This is for your "Shameless PWP where James is overwrought and needs bringing down to earth" prompt. it was a lot of fun 😈
> 
> Thank you carnival_papers and icicaille for beta'ing and emotional support!! ♥

It would be cruel to damage any of the officers without dire cause, particularly now that reports of scurvy have begun to crop up among the crew. Yet James is begging. The smell of smoke still hangs on him like a shroud, and he begs. _Please, Francis. Please. Help me._

Francis sits at the sadly rigged table in _Terror’_ s Great Room and listens. At last he draws a hand over his face. “It’s out of the question, James.”

“I deserve it,” James says, stubborn as ever. Maintaining the appearance of confidence for the men is foremost in their minds, so both talk quietly. Francis has dismissed Jopson for the evening, the door kept shut. “The greatest loss of life on this expedition, Francis. Is that not negligence of duty?”

Francis lifts his face, almost smiling. “I should think I was the last man you’d accept judgment from on that particular offense.”

James can see it in his mind, is the thing. It’s haunted him half the day and he welcomes it, anything to crowd out the faces of his men and how they had screamed as they cooked. He would have despised the idea of Francis' punishment not long ago, and now the promise of it feels like the only thing holding him together. 

If James stopped to consider it, he’d see Francis is correct. It doesn’t keep him from trying to think his way out: if they can’t risk opening wounds on James perhaps, to compensate, Francis would have him over the table, exposed for a boy’s punishment. Francis could use his bare hand and the pain of every strike would devastate both of them. He could run his hand over James' back, feel pride he has no right to when James remains still, bites back his cries. They wouldn’t stop until Francis heard the first broken sob. 

A bit helplessly, James sighs and drops his arms to his sides. “It need not be in front of the men.”

“Any blame placed on you,” says Francis, “is also my own, and twice-over at that. You don’t require punishment, James. Least of all from me.” He must see James readying for a final attempt because he shuts his eyes. “Do not ask me again.”

A hush falls over them. As in so many moments in James' life, he trusts his feet to know where to go. When Francis has opened his eyes again, it’s to James kneeling on the cold floor in front of him.

Francis begins to frown. 

James tries to explain. “If I’m good for nothing else—”

“Damn it, James.” It’s the first time Francis has raised his voice above whispering, and James stills. He’s seen Francis angry, and it isn’t that. This is only stern. He needs James to _hear_. “You’re a fine captain and fit for a great many things. I won’t have you debase yourself to satisfy some self-pity.”

An unexpected shard of that sentiment pierces James. As he looks up, they see each other’s surprise. Something in James becomes soft, tired. He sags forward until his forehead rests on Francis' knee. A curl of his hair falls over his face.

After a moment, Francis brushes it back. Francis carefully pets his hair, and James shakes, breathing gone irregular and stuttered. He shuts his eyes against whatever feeling is burning the back of his throat.

James is a fraud, he is trapped and dying in his own skin, he is fundamentally unworthy of comfort or forgiveness or understanding. Somehow, here near the end of the world, a touch from this man has become the touch of Grace itself. 

“You’re alright.” Gentle strokes over his bent head, soothing and quiet. “I have you. I have you, James.” 

“Do you find me a debased man?” James says when he trusts his voice. He turns to look up, using the motion to wipe half the determined tears off on Francis' thigh. “Am I lessened in your eyes for coming here?” 

“No.” His captain, his First, cups the back of James' head in reassurance. “No, not at all.”

The Preston Patent Illuminators have long been dark, shielded by the ships’ winter covers and thick crusts of ice. Even in this intimate gloom, lit only by the flicker of lamps, James is exposed. Francis does not let him turn away, and even uses his thumbs to clear the wet from James' face. It is wonderful, and horrible. 

Francis stops him only once more, when James reaches for his clothes. A sharp tug on his hair yanks him back, exposing him to Francis' sharp gaze. “If you intend to use me in pursuit of self-flagellation,” Francis says, “I won’t be party to it. I can’t.”

James looks up, clear-eyed and focused. When Francis releases him, he captures the hand and kisses its center, presses his chapped lips to palm and fingertips and knuckles.

“You were a step from broken the last time we were in this room together,” James says. He finds the front of Francis’ trousers, opening him up. “Before that, ready to spill each other’s blood until that beast invaded the ship. I wouldn’t have knelt for that man.” He pauses, placing his hand over the hottest part of Francis before taking him out. “I will for you.” 

In the hush that settles over them, Francis is the one to gasp. “James—” 

His cock is entirely soft when James draws it out, and James does not mind at all. James tries every way but speaking to show Francis that he is welcome. He nuzzles it and finds he can fit all of Francis in the pocket of his mouth. He sinks into warmth, all the way down, until hair tickles his nose and he can hide his face against Francis’ belly. It feels safe. 

When James breathes in, shaky, Francis resumes touching his hair, these hands that have done him violence in the past now quietly petting him. James can rest his head on Francis’ inner thigh, close his eyes and swallow the mixture of saliva and brine when he likes, without expectation or need. James is a vessel, a warm and safe harbour. 

“As much as I wish otherwise, I’m afraid there’s no easy solution for being old, tired, and having spent weeks loitering on death’s doorstep. Weeks…” Francis laughs a bit. “Years, more like.” 

While Francis talks, James licks at the prick’s underside with his tongue. “James,” Francis gasps, firming up a bit, and James does it again. Soft, primal, drawing Francis in. Something natural about how it comforts, in the fog between a nursing babe and a man receiving communion. He moves his jaw, sucking at Francis like he’s drawing a tongue into his mouth for deep, languorous kissing. 

“You lovely thing,” Francis murmurs. James releases him long enough to place a warm kiss on Francis’ thigh and look up at him, eyes large and dark. “The mouth on you, James. Do you have any idea the effect you have? Well,” he says, acknowledging the obvious evidence rising between his legs. “I suppose you do.”

James confirms by lowering his mouth once again, this time with a flicker of tongue and a deliberate, rough swipe that draws Francis’ hips off the chair.

“Pulling miracles out of me. But we already knew you had a skilled mouth on you, didn’t we, James?” Francis hooks a finger into James’ mouth, directing him up. Difficult to mourn the loss when the results are Francis fully hard for him and with a gleam in his eye. Francis is watching his mouth, so James wraps his lips around Francis’ finger too, sucking on it, making it wet. 

Francis watches, entranced. “Shameless,” he says with fondness. “Impertinent, beautiful man. Fetch the lamp and get up here.” 

_Here_ is straddled over Francis’ lap, once both of them are relieved of an acceptable amount of clothing. James hasn’t yet succumbed to an excess of blushing, though he feels in danger of it when Francis—lap full of James at last—spreads his legs, and James’ thighs open with them. Well and truly exposed, and even that a far cry from Francis dipping his fingers in the lamp oil and tracing that slick finger down James’ arse. James can only give a small pleading noise, and the finger slips inside.

He hasn’t had this properly in some time. The internal flutterings of his own body make him exceptionally aware of everywhere Francis is going to fill him—is filling him, presently. Withdrawing slowly, almost to the point of slipping out of James, before he sinks back in. A sailor’s hands, not small but so careful with him.

James swallows an odd noise, on the cusp of laughing or crying. He takes a breath, and another, deep gulps of air that only feed the heat in his center. “Francis,” he begins, and Francis gathers him closer, taking advantage of unguarded skin and kissing all before him. “Oh, please. Let me, let me…”

“Shh,” he says in the arch of James’ throat. He gentles James with the hand not inside, feeling out the muscles of James’ back until his posture goes soft and melting against the man under him. “Can’t have the men come knocking to see what I’ve done with you. I don’t intend to tease, James. Everything I can give you, you’ll have it.”

If James had any more sense, the promise would be enough to make him wild. For now, he nods, dizzy. His own prick, roused to half-mast and no more all this time, gives an inspired heavy twitch. Another finger in him, making him ache for deeper, for more, to be good. 

“Had I only room to lay you out, be thorough with you,” says Francis, and James keens, wishing again for his fingers, his prick, anything to stop his mouth. “All the time in the world to take you to pieces, until we were mad with it.”

James shudders, oversensitive and unresisting as Francis removes his fingers.

“James—?”

“Yes, yes, please.” At last. He lifts up in anticipation and Francis holds him steady, guiding him into place as James lowers himself onto him. “Oh, Francis.”

Francis lays a hand over his chest, and James grasps it, holding it there. He’s aware they’re both holding their breath until James is seated fully, and then James is all tiny panting gasps, mouth falling open as Francis rises to meet him. So much more, so much more than he could ever have expected. The shock of being full, stretched, used, the cock in him a heavy, relentless weight. Francis is heat and muscle beneath him. 

There’s an ache in James’ legs, and he sinks deeper onto Francis as they give out, spearing him open from his own weight. “Oh, Christ, Francis,” he gasps against him, digging trembling hands into his back. He feels wet heat, Francis’ mouth on his chest, his neck, sweet adoration adding to the pressure building inside him. 

He cannot comprehend whispered endearments any longer—not over being soundly fucked as though Francis really does have all the time he pleases, like James is his to have and enjoy by right. And James wants it; by God, he wants it. Wants the hands on him still, petting and taming him, nearly lifting him, and imagines how Francis could have tossed him about in his prime, not recovering after illness or years of atrophy on the ice. He could have ruined James if he’d asked nicely—

Francis slides a hand down between them to cover James' cock, and works at him with a firm, knowing hand until Jame' is helpless with it, mouthing over the skin of his shoulder, aimless sucking kisses. 

“Alright, James?” Francis says. “That’s it, we’ll make a mess of you yet. I have you, my boy. I have you.” 

James squirms under a fiercer twist in Francis’ grip. The greatest surprise of the night—that he should find his end first. When his spine arches, Francis is scarcely in time to cover his mouth with a kiss, muffling the urgent cry as he spends into Francis’ hand. 

It’s devastation itself. James feels scoured, reduced to something fresh and weak. He trembles and quakes in Francis’ arms, feels the wetness again in his eyes.

When it’s through, James sprawls across Francis in sudden heavy satisfaction. He has enough sense of mind to clench around Francis, hungry for it still. “I want it,” he says into Francis’ mouth, entreating around all the little helpless sounds he knows himself to be making. “Fuck me. Finish inside," James gasps. His breath is hot and damp in the crook of Francis’ shoulder. His mouth is smeared with wetness. He’s draped over Francis like a prize, deliciously his. The proprietary grip on his haunches feels right. “Yes. Yes, Francis, let me—”

It ends with Francis stilling his hips, and James holds on as best he can, riding crests of ragged thrusts until Francis finds his mouth again to catch and quiet the noise of his moans.

* * *

Through a soft haze, James becomes aware that Francis is idly stroking his back, murmuring into his hair. “James? Are you with me?”

James makes some noise of acknowledgment. There’s going to be a frightful mess when Francis slips out of him, and that’s reason enough for the moment to stay exactly where he is. Were it not for the chill, he could nap here without much fuss. 

“James?”

“Francis,” he answers. His voice sounds foreign to him, croaky and hoarse. The shell of Francis’ ear is in reach of his mouth, and so he lazily nips at the lobe. 

A gratifying shiver beneath him. “I would keep you, James, but I am losing sensation in my legs.”

For the first time, James’ mind is quiet enough to recall Francis’ Carnivale speech with clarity. Walk out. Abandon ships.

“Yes, well. I suppose you’ll be needing them,” James allows as Francis strokes his hair. He dismounts rather awkwardly, holding Francis’ shoulders for balance. 

A napkin is the least shameful option on hand to clean himself and then Francis. Even the captains are rationing coal now, so they have no time for idle touches before the layers of clothes must be pulled on. “I’ll be needed back on _Erebus_ ,” James says as he slides on his waistcoat. 

“Of course.” 

James pauses before the door. He wants to say something but _thank you for not beating the hysteria out of me; fucking it out of me was far superior_ falls pathetically short of all he needs Francis to understand. He doesn’t know if this will happen again and cannot presume. Perhaps in a warmer place, a warmer time…

“Thank you, Francis,” he says at last.

There’s more kindness and understanding in the single nod Francis gives him than James has seen from the man in the past two years. “Take care on the ice. We’ll talk again tomorrow to begin preparations. Get some rest, James.”

James follows the familiar path to his ship, carrying a small spark of hope with him.

**Author's Note:**

> *looks at you knowingly over all the shared buttons on our kink control panels*
> 
> Anyway I'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/djsoliloquy)/[tumblr](https://djsoliloquy.tumblr.com), come on over and crack open some cold boys with me.


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